williamlondon

dewme said:

netrox said:

That is great news.

Thread is a protocol and we need that to help with improved networking resilience.

Thread requires a low power radio and it needs Matter to automatically adjust networks that are required for users. It is designed for little data to be transmitted and should not be used for mice, keyboard, or anything like that (that's where Bluetooth comes in) but to transmit for devices to ack and send their statuses. It's ideal for home automation and computing networks than data transmission which is where Thread/Matter will notify those devices to use when handshaking for high speed communication.

For example, if home security video is being transmitted, it will never happen in Thread but in WiFi. What would happen is that the Thread enabled device provide Matter the status and the Matter then sends the Thread device (home security camera) with WiFi information which is necessary for high data bandwidth communication and the camera then kicks in WiFi connection and sends video. WiFi itself consumes a lot of power and that's why you don't see many battery-operated WiFi devices.

Thread devices work much better as battery operated and often works as router if it requires constant power (like plugin or complex device requiring high processing resources).

The more thread devices we have, the more robust the network will be.

However, I am not sure if any of those Thread will be "routers" - Apple TV and HomePod are the only ones with the routers.

I completely agree with your take on this. As you said, adding additional nodes will obviously bolster the mesh, but I too wonder what roles are envisioned for the mentioned Apple client devices that have native support for Thread networking using the low powered radios instead of WiFi. Perhaps Apple is envisioning some sort of “Wake on Thread” to allow these devices to turn off their WiFi radio when sleeping, or a Thread based peer-to-peer connection between Apple devices to reduce power draw, if in fact the comm chips/subassembly for each radio are powered separately. We’ll see.

cincytee said:

fastasleep said:

cincytee said:

Still happily watching a 25-year-old CRT TV with a digital converter. During commercials I get a beverage from my 55-year-old refrigerator, which soldiers on without complaint. The forced obsolescence of basically new hardware for something as mundane as watching TV is ridiculous.

If you're still on a CRT you clearly do not care about the quality of your image.

It's not that I don't care; it's a case of diminishing returns. The CRT with digital signal is perfectly acceptable. It's like the audiophile world: The best sound doesn't equate with the best musical performance.

Technology changes since then are hardly forced obsolescence.

No, they're not, and, if I want to get the very best in cutting-edge tech, I have no objection to that requiring that I buy cutting-edge devices. I do object to extorting me to buy new equipment to continue to get the service that already works fine.

hmurchison said:

All vendors should be required to divulge radios and other communication capable products in their product whether they be dormant or not.   We are placing a lot of trust in purchasing hardware and leaving such items off of specification sheets is a red flag to me.